[Springfield Reformer]

I appreciate and respect your thoughtful and substantive input. It is refreshing. With that in mind, I hope you will not think I am being impertinent, but I need to ask this question. Does it matter to the finding of metaphor that He is or is not speaking of a possession? I understand you are trying to establish that the form is not possessive, but in fact, as a matter of logic, His blood and Body are His possession.  So I may not quite be getting your point.

As for metaphor, it is rather easy to get into the metaphoric framework. In fact, computational models are being developed for English that can recognize direct metaphor by an algorithm. All you need are two nouns (including one possibly as a pronoun, which is the case here), linked together with one form or another of the verb of being, with the additional criteria that as between the two nouns some fundamental contrast in category must exist in parallel with some shared attribute.  The shared attribute is the analogical teaching element, and the contrast in category, the "impossibility factor," is the trip wire for spotting the metaphor. Issues of possessive qualifiers tacked on to one of the nouns would not seem to be a factor. 

For example, I hold up a map of Texas and say, "This is Texas," or "This is my Texas." The additional possessive qualifier is irrelevant. I have still deployed a metaphor. Clearly the piece of paper is NOT the state of Texas. It is a symbolic representation of the state of Texas. So we have our "impossibility factor." Yet the outline of the border and various cities within etc do correspond to real borders and real city locations, etc.  So there's your attributes that teach by analogy.  Yet you know the paper is not the state, and if someone hands you that paper and says, "This is Texas," you will not be the least confused.  You have just been metaphored. :)

In fact, the idea of metaphor is so important some cognitive scientists (if that's the right title) I ran across recently seem to think it is a basic building block of our hard-wired thinking apparatus. If this is the case, then metaphor recognition based on the pattern described above would tend to be a universal trait of human thought, and therefore behave roughly the same across any linguistic boundaries, ancient or modern.

But I do want to understand your grammatical point. "mou" is extremely frequent in the NT corpus as a simple genitive, most often showing possession (although I think the genitive can be broader than that, going to the root idea of "the source of x", hence the "gen" in genitive). Many examples follow here in which the noun modified by  "mou" has the definite article, which you seem to think is a problem, yet all of these and many more are uniformly and rightly rendered as possessives:

Matthew 2:6 ... ὅστις ποιμανεῖ τὸν λαόν μου τὸν Ἰσραήλ

"the people of me the Israel = my people Israel"


Matthew 2:15 ... Ἐξ Αἰγύπτου ἐκάλεσα τὸν υἱόν μου

the son of me = my son


Matthew 7:21  ... ἀλλʼ ὁ ποιῶν τὸ θέλημα τοῦ πατρός μου τοῦ ἐν οὐρανοῖς.

the father of me = my father


I could go on and on.  I don't have the statistics, but at first glance there seems to be a nearly unlimited supply of these things. And in none of the above cases is there any doubt of the possessive sense. So there is no reason I can see to render the passages concerning the Lord's Supper any differently:

this is the body of me = this is my body

But here's the point of real confusion for me. You said this:

When Jesus said "this is the body of me" He was not speaking about a possession. You would never say; "This is the car of me".

... but in fact, as demonstrated above, that's exactly how you'd form a possessive in Greek. I agree not in English, but in Greek, yes, that's the pattern. Another example, one even closer to home than the above examples, is here:

1 Cor 13:3 Καὶ ἐὰν ψωμίσω πάντα τὰ ὑπάρχοντά μου, καὶ ἐὰν παραδῶ τὸ σῶμά μου ἵνα καυθήσωμαι, ἀγάπην δὲ μὴ ἔχω, οὐδὲν ὠφελοῦμαι.

1Cor 13:3  And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. (KJV)

Now these aren't metaphor, because they are not linked back to the antecedent pronoun "I" by a verb of being, but in this case by "bestow" and "give," respectively.  But clearly they are possessives, and the second one, if you have noticed, is identical to the passage in Luke about which we are disagreeing. So my question, sincerely, to you is, why should they be treated differently?

I'm not disparaging your point. Not at all. But I'm sure not understanding it. What might help me is if you could do three things.

    1) show me how you would render your idea of it into English.  Embellish it as much as you need to to get the idea across (like Wuest - wasn't that a great study tool!), because due to my training in the genitive, I will read "my body" and "the body of me" as exactly the same thing. So I'm asking how you would render it into "explanatory English."

    2) Point me to an example elsewhere in the text that demonstrates the same principle in a less controversial setting, i.e., one where I will have no reason to worry about bias distortion. And ...

    3) If you can, point me to some formal, academic description of the phenomena, specifically, where what appears to be an ordinary genitive/possessive pronoun is really something more like what you are saying (whatever that is).

I understand that's probably asking a lot, but I would benefit and so would all the observers here. If you'd rather not pursue those actions, I can bounce it off some folks in the academy. In any event, I do appreciate an opportunity to engage in real learning here, and I am in your debt for that.

Peace,

SR

[verga]

No sarcasm intended here at all. This is the single best defense of the protestant position I have ever read in 17 years of engaging in these debates.

Your first point:Does it matter to the finding of metaphor that He is or is not speaking of a possession? I understand you are trying to establish that the form is not possessive, but in fact, as a matter of logic, His blood and Body are His possession.

Jesus is the single most unique being ever in the history of the universe. He is both fully Human and fully Divine at the same time. He is made up of His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. They are not His possessions, they are His essence, they are what make Him, Him.

Your second point:The shared attribute is the analogical teaching element, and the contrast in category, the "impossibility factor," is the trip wire for spotting the metaphor.

I personally don't see the "impossibility factor" as an issue. Jesus as a divine being is not subject to the same limitations that our bodies and natures subject us to. This is the being that raised Talitiha and Lazarus from the dead, so turning bread and wine into His literal body and blood would be nothing. Keep in mind that God the Father created the entire universe Ex nihilo from nothing.

Your third point:But I do want to understand your grammatical point. "mou" is extremely frequent in the NT corpus as a simple genitive, most often showing possession (although I think the genitive can be broader than that, going to the root idea of "the source of x", hence the "gen" in genitive).

I know that you are aware of the following, but I want others to see my reasoning. The genitive case does refer to possessions, but was not used. The dative case refers to refers to instrumentality, location, or reception and also was not used. That leaves the Accusative and the Nominative both as possibilities. The accusative case refers to the direct object of a verb generally an action verb ie. He runs, She talks, etc.. That leave the nominative which is the subject of the sentence. In this case "This is" "This" being the bread.

All of your examples are good ones, but you left out the one in which a divine being, God the Father, is discussing another divine being, Jesus.

Luke 6:35 And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my Son, my chosen: hear ye him.

καὶ φωνὴ ἐγένετο ἐκ τῆς νεφέλης λέγουσα· οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ υἱός μου ὁ ἀγαπητός· αὐτοῦ ἀκούετε.

Three verses down Luke6:38 And behold, a man from the multitude cried, saying, Teacher, I beseech thee to look upon my son; for he is mine only child:

καὶ ἰδοὺ ἀνὴρ ἀπὸ τοῦ ὄχλου ἀνεβόησε λέγων· διδάσκαλε, δέομαί σου, ἐπίβλεψον ἐπὶ τὸν υἱόν μου, ὅτι μονογενής μοί ἐστι·

In the first example the nominative case is used in the second, the accusative case.

This is why I am convinced that they nominative case was used. The genitive tou which could refer to a possession was not and the accusative would have to have a direct object.

But that is not the end of it. I combine that with the Bread of the bread of life discourse at the end of John 6 Joh 6:53 Jesus therefore said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves.

Joh 6:54 He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life: and I will raise him up at the last day.

Joh 6:55 For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.

Joh 6:56 He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me, and I in him.

This is the second time I have written this. The first time took over an hour and I accidently deleted it. The second took about an hour. This one may be some what disjointed and I apologize in advance for that.

I do to say that it was a pleasure to read your comments. I enjoy reading a well thought out argument even if I do disagree with it.